


Companion

by IAmInTwelve



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-15 04:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10549884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmInTwelve/pseuds/IAmInTwelve
Summary: Thank you so much for your kudos! Hope you like where this is going :)





	1. Chapter 1

“Clara… Clara…Clara…”

 The name repeated in his barely conscious mind, like a faint echo of a call that lingered on, though its voice was absent. It settled over him like an autumn leaf gently floating down once its time was done.

 His opened his eyes a crack, before using his right hand to shield them from the light.

 “Ah!” he exclaimed, as the throbbing pain in his temples returned. He sat up, barely, and noticed the sharp, metallic hardness of his bed. He gasped a mouthful of air in a desperate attempt to wake himself. It tasted stale. A gentle humming from his other side suggested he was in a room with machines.

 “Daleks…? Or Cybermen…?” he thought. “Maybe someone finally got me.” He chuckled softly. It would be a relief – liberating, even – if Death finally managed to catch up to him. No more… No more regenerations, no more lies, no more running, no more of being … The Doctor…

 He moved his hand away in an effort to see clearly. As the room moved into focus, the strange humming morphed into a series of squeaks, loops and clicks, before settling into a rhythm of a four-beat rattle – like a car that had trouble starting.

 “Bugger…” he muttered, rising up from the metal floor. He was not in any prison, or hospital, or worse. There were no enemies around; he was the lone occupant so far as he could see. And it wasn’t a cold bed that he had slept in; he was in his TARDIS, on its cold metal floor.

 He did a quick mental check of his limbs, his surroundings, and his faculties -- not necessarily in that order. He tried to recall the last moments before he had blacked out. His left hand brushed against something lying on the floor. It was one piece of broken sunglasses. One lens, and a bit of the earpiece.

  _Oh!_ He realized with a dread. It had been one of _those_ episodes. He reached inside his hoodie and pulled out a handkerchief. He flipped it open with a few vigorous shakes, and then lifted the broken piece off the floor, taking care not to bring any part of his exposed skin in contact with the object. He placed it gingerly on a white plinth on the console, surrounded by an assorted set of tools.

  _Oh no!_ This was even dangerous. It had been one of _those episodes!_ He shook his head as he steadied himself to an upright position.

 He should have known better, he _really_ should have known better. But he was… well, who he was, and to expect him to resist the opportunity would have been expecting a Dalek to have a multi-word vocabulary!

 The episodes had started when he left the Diner. The Diner, yes, he was sure it was a Diner. Nothing remained in his memories of the time he spent there, except a persistent nagging at the corner of his eyes, a shadow that flitted in the corners of his vision and vanished if he tried to look directly at it. He knew the shadow was called Clara, but that was all he knew. She was a puzzle, an enigma; a riddle that he had to solve. So he set about trying to solve it.

 His first line of action landed him right at the same spot where he had departed from – Nevada, USA, Earth. His memories may have become fuzzy, but not the TARDIS! She remembered everything, even stuff that had yet to happen, and she took him directly to the last known location of the Diner.

 He stepped out from the TARDIS into a landscape baked by blazing hot sun. There was nobody in sight; in fact there was nobody around for a few hundred miles. He had checked for life signs before stepping out. He put on his sunglasses and began exploring the area. The heat made him sweat, and soon he was questioning the wisdom of not carrying a bottle of water on him. He wiped away a rivulet of sweat from his forehead and surveyed the land, shielding his eyes from the sun.

 It was a ghostly silence that greeted him. Not a soul moved as far as the eyes could see. It was just rocks, piled one on top of another, or scattered around and forgotten as if by a child who had grown bored of playing with his toys. He could hear his own breathing, deep and full. Occasionally a gust of wind blew up a dust devil in a distance, and it was perhaps the only sign of life in an otherwise dead land.

  _Why had she brought me here?_ He thought. There must be a reason, there had to be a reason why she brought him here, of all the places. He walked about, aimlessly, searching for something, anything, that could explain why he was here.

 He was moving towards the edge of a particularly interesting rock formation, when he felt something crunch and snap under his feet. He removed his left foot gingerly and placed it back, and then bent down to examine what was once a black object.

 It was sunglasses, almost the same type as he was wearing, now neatly broken off into two halves. One of the halves was fragmented into dozens of tiny pieces. Yes, his boots could inflict damage when they needed to. The other half looked more or less intact - a lens and a thin earpiece that was a size or so smaller than his. He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and picked up the undamaged half. He brought it up to his ears, and smiled. He could pick up a faint humming from the lens.

 Her sonic sunglasses. They were a gift for her birthday.

  _How come you get to carry all the fun stuff? I think it is time I got my own too!_

 A fierce voice echoed from some dark chamber within his mind. He had merely feigned arguing against a human wielding Time Lord technology, because he loved it when she acted with … intensity, with passion.

 He recalled how he had made them in his workshop, working over a week to get them just right. True, his TARDIS could have made one almost instantly. But it felt like … the right thing to do. Working with his hands, making sure every piece was placed in just the right way, with just the right amount of … care? Precision? He hated moments like this – when the fog of her memories rendered him blind.

 He handled them carefully, not letting any part of the object touch his bare skin. He had tried that before, picking up what she had left behind in his TARDIS. The result, well, let us just say it was not pretty. He felt as if his own mind was rebelling against him, as if there was a war waging inside his brain – thoughts and memories that wanted to break free fighting hard against the barriers he had placed there himself.

  _It was the only way,_ he repeated to himself. _It was the only way the Universe would allow her to live…_

He walked back into the TARDIS, quietly staring at the object in his hand. If the old girl had brought him here, then she must believe that the sunglasses were important. Time to get to work then.

 He tried his own sonic on the glasses, but their sonic receptor was broken. He had to do it the old-fashioned way. He went below the console to dig up his set of tools, and came up with a weathered, brown leather utility pouch. He unrolled the pouch, selected a suitable screwdriver for his set, and reached out to pick up the earpiece.

  _Too late,_ he thought as his bare fingers made contact with the cold, black metal. A searing pain passed from his fingertips to his brain. He felt a sudden disorientation, a now familiar sickness trying to surface through his consciousness. He let go of the sunglasses, and felt himself crashing to the floor, his world growing dark.

 And that is how it all began.


	2. Chapter 2

The TARDIS was silent, save for the occasional hum of the central column that allowed air circulation and maintained safe atmospheric conditions in its interior. A Time Lord needed to breathe, even inside a Time Vortex. Usually, this task was a straightforward simulation of Gallifreyan atmospheric conditions and seasons to match the conditions on the home planet. It also served as a synchronization mechanism to the Gallifreyan calendar. Made it quite a breeze (literally) to track and coordinate the various TARDII.

 But this one, the TARDIS had concluded, this one was unusual, to say the least. Firstly, he had stolen her (or so he thought!), which meant that there could be no coordination with the home planet, or with another of her kind. And then, true to his nature, he had completely overlooked the vital task of turning off the automated synchronization beacon that made the seasonal changes, and remote tracking, possible. She had attempted to do so, but without proper authorization from her pilot, the process had fried the chameleon circuits. Her exterior was stuck in a loop as a 1960’s blue police box from England. _That_ had put a serious dampener in her plans to try out exotic and fashionable exteriors from across the Universe. She had resented him for that, initially, but later realized that it was appropriate that only one of them be allowed to possess an eclectic approach to fashionable exterior. At least the Universe took a box that had “Police” painted on the outside, seriously.

 Secondly, he had picked up this strange habit of picking up … strays. He brought them home when it fancied him, without consulting her first! They would arrive in a huff, completely unaware of what they were getting themselves into. She had hoped that they would pop in for few moments, have a nice dinner, and then scoot away as fast as they could. But to her dismay, they seemed to like his adventures, and worse, they stayed! Having to continually adjust to new species played havoc with her atmospheric systems. At least lately, he was more consistent and brought them from Earth, which had the atmosphere closer to Gallifrey than others.

 And they were a mixed lot too. While his earlier … “companions” (as he called them) … were friendly, she had no reason to mistrust them. The Doctor was _her_ pilot, and she was _his_ … well, she was _just his_. She had liked Rose, trusted Martha, and enjoyed her time with Donna, Amelia and Rory (Not to forget, Professor River Song!) Then, he met Clara…

Clara - young, impetuous, daring, heroic – in many ways a perfect foil for him. Clara unsettled her, in ways that even a TARDIS could not comprehend. She had the whole of Space and Time in her hands, and yet, here was a tiny little human who defied every convention that bound humans to Space and Time. When everywhere and everywhen is your playground, anachronism can seem like a silly, meaningless concept. But Clara defied the laws of Time – she showed up in multiple places, in multiple times, and in ways that surprised both of them. And in every instance, they jumped at the opportunity to uncover her secret - the Time Lord and his TARDIS, both of whom loved puzzles!

 And that is what he was doing right now, trying to solve another puzzle that she had left behind for him.

 “Why _this_?” He held up the lens in his gloved hand, as if it were an exhibit, and slowly turned around, as if he were displaying it to an audience.

 He looked _up_ , as he often did when he wanted to communicate with his TARDIS, though it was wholly unnecessary. She could hear him no matter where he was.

 “Why this?” He repeated the question to the Universe, in general. He had managed to separate the actual sonic lens from the eyepiece. The eyepiece was just a supporting structure; it had no tech built into it. It was the lens that served as the sonic. He placed the lens on the plinth and looked at it edge-on. With a magnifier, he could make out the layers of translucent circuits that he had painstakingly put together one at a time.

 What was it she had said – “Are you making a _baklava_?”

 “Yes,” He had replied. “But I would highly discourage you from taking a bite!”

 “Because it’s a sonic?”

 “No,” He had answered, gruffly. “Because it might bite back!”

 He had then stared at her, expectantly, hoping she would dissolve into a fit of giggles – the kind that he was so fond of. But she had merely smiled at him. A deep, knowing smile that he had come to realize was more dangerous, more intimate than a guffaw. And then she had walked over and put her arms around him, the way he publicly protested, but loved nonetheless. She knew him well enough to understand his peculiar sense of humor.

 “Jokes with one punch line – boring! Where’s the charm in _that_? _”_

 So she had always obliged by providing him an opportunity to deliver more than one.

 “Thank you!” she had whispered in his ears, looking over his shoulder to the mess he had accumulated on his workbench.

“How do you do it, really?” she had asked. “Isn’t it supposed to be a Harry Potter wand-like thingy, that you wave around?”

“Oh, that’s just the form factor. The actual sonic circuitry can be placed in any form. The trick is easy, really – I am quite surprised no other Time Lord thought about this. Just use the TARDIS – she can move easily through Space and Time, but with the right parameters, she can even manipulate them!”

“Like a blob of clay, you mean?”

“Exactly! It’s like if you built ‘The Egg’ from clay, and then flatten Space so that every level in that tower is a few microns, you could fit it into a wafer. Stack them up and you get an Egg that you could hold on your finger.”

“That’s why,” He continued. “It is so difficult to put the layers together by hand. if you break one of them, you have to start all over.”

“Thank you,” she had said, softly, resting her face against his side. “Thank you…”

“You are … welcome, Clara.” He had muttered.

 

Now those same layers stared back at him, taunting him to open them and unravel their secrets. He kept staring at them for a few minutes, but failed to gain any headway into solving his problem.

He stood up, and removed his gloves, tossing them on the console in frustration, and began to pace the floor. Occasionally, he stopped and looked back at the lens, frowning as a new solution began to form in his brain. But he found himself shaking his head every time, discarding the idea because he had found a kink in it.

Eventually, he gave up. Staring at the lens was not going to help. He had to find a new perspective, a way out of this problem, and he realized that his only way out lay with that broken piece of sonic sunglasses.

_Time to go old school then._

 

He walked briskly to his chalkboard, and wrote “Sonic Sunglasses” on the top, in large letters.

“Question!” He announced to no one in particular. “Why the sunglasses? Conjecture: Because they belonged to her. No, that would be too easy. Because I _made_ them for her? Aha!” He wrote two words – `Doctor’ and `Clara’ on the board.

“Question: What am I supposed to do with them? Conjecture: A scientific analysis would be the straightforward answer. A logical answer, so we are obviously not going with that!” He drew a large circle around `Clara’ and stepped back, placing the chalk on his lips, deep in thought.

“Question: What do the glasses mean? Correction: What do they _represent_? Conjecture: A gift? A token? Really?” He addressed the last part to the console, as if asking the TARDIS herself. “No, I made them for her while she was _here_.”

“Conjecture: They represent the time we shared. Together, in the TARDIS.” He drew another circle, this time around the word ‘Doctor,’ making sure that it intersected with the circle around ‘Clara.’

“Oh, we do not want to go there,” he filled in the region where the circles intersected. “Not if we value our lunch, thank you! 

He stared at the board for a few moments, and then moved his gaze to the region where the circles did not intersect.

“Question: What if it is not Time that we shared, but Space? Conjecture: That would imply a location that we did not share. Question, again: What if it is not one, but both! Conjecture: What if we could be at a place, but not in the same Time?”

His eyes widened as he remembered her words.

_Don’t look where we are. Take off and promise me you will never look where we’ve been._

  
_Why?_

_Just take off, don’t ask questions._ _  
_

He walked over to the console, punched in the coordinates, and after a moments hesitation, flipped over the landing lever.

He knew where he had to go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your kudos! Hope you like where this is going :)

The End of the Universe!

That is what he was staring at, from inside a familiar pod. When Space had reached the limits of its expanding frontier, and had begun the journey inwards, and where Time stretched out across an eternity; where a heartbeat spoke with another, once in a million years. Here, in the realm of nothingness, there was no one, except him. He was surrounded by an eerie silence strangely reminiscent of where he had just been. A million million years into the future, he thought, and some things never change. He was alone – here, at the end of Time and Space, as he would be if he went to the _other_ side, the explosive beginning that created it all.

_Yes, some things never change._

Venturing out into the harsh terrain was out of the question, naturally. He wondered how Orson Pink had spent that time, cooped up inside his time craft, with nothing and no one for company. Maybe he should go back to the 22nd century and gently slip the blueprints for “Space Compression and Dilation,” into the UNIT archive. At least Orson could carry a few books and have a nice kitchen in here.

His reverie was interrupted by a series of short squeaks from inside the TARDIS. _Thank you_ dear, he said, almost absent-mindedly. She always knew when to bring him back home. Wondering about Orson and his world was nice, but he had more pressing things on his agenda.

He looked out of the circular window one last time, as if wanting to save the image in his mind. If it came to it, he decided, when he grew tired of the running around, when he would finally want to rest, he would come here. Here, at the end of the Universe, where there would be no memorial service, no flowers, no one to read a eulogy. _No one he would leave behind._

His mind made up, he straightened himself, zipped up his hoodie, and walked into the TARDIS in a few confident steps.

 _All right, old girl. Now it is up to you… Take me where we went next, from here._ He addressed the central console. The console lit up in response, the central drum on the time rotors working itself up to a nice rhythm as the TARDIS took off to the place where her pilot had never been to.

He smiled at her, beaming like a schoolboy who had been offered a delicious, forbidden treat. As the engines settled into a relaxing cycle of the-very-familiar-whooshing, he could not help shake this feeling as if the TARDIS itself was eagerly moving towards their destination. _A mad man, with an equally mad box!_

It was the time to solve this puzzle!

* * *

 

As the time rotors came to a halt, he turned away from the displays that showed where they had landed (a promise was a promise, after all), but the ambient light control indicated that they had landed someplace where it was daytime. So he put on his sunglasses, pocketed his sonic screwdriver, and pulled the door open, expecting to walk into a sunny landscape. He walked forward a couple of steps, and then lifted his head to check his surroundings, and stopped short.

He was in a barn, a very familiar barn. _This could not be._ His mind raced to calculate all forms of paradoxes the Universe would be unleashing upon itself any moment now. _This was where she had gone?  Clara, his Clara? Maybe it was the TARDIS, playing a joke on him._

“Is this you?” He turned around to ask the humming machine. In response, she shut her doors with an audible crack. He knew better than to try and unlock them. She could be very sly when she wanted to be. All he had was a sonic in his pocket, and she knew it would not work on her. Being nice was out of the question – she had deliberately brought him here, so there was something, something important that she wanted him to see. He turned to face away from the TARDIS, with a rueful smile on his face.

He could not move forward, and he could also not move back. He chose to inspect his surroundings instead; maybe they would offer him a clue of when he was.

The barn was empty, but it looked well kept; not as old as he remembered, so this must be one of his childhood memories. He could smell the faint, lingering scent of a fruity varnish on the wall panels, mingling with the sharpness of freshly cut grass, stacked in the other corner. He stepped into the central area, where a few farming implements supported a gray sheet of cloth, draped over them to form a makeshift tent.

 _The Capitol._ He recalled, with a wistful smile. The implements were resting together to form a triangle, and the sheet draped over them to give an impression of a large tent. He was surprised to realize that he could name all the items that he would find in its interior, if he were to open the portion that constituted the ‘door’ of this structure.

“Why here? Why now?” He asked the TARDIS. She answered back with a combination of squeaks and whooshing sounds that only he could interpret. 

 _Open it._ She said. _Open everything._

“Easy for you to say. I have to be the one to think about the Universe and its paradoxes, right?” She squeaked back in a boisterous laugh.

“Don’t do that! This,” he pointed to the tent with his sonic, “This is no laughing matter.” No matter how much he argued with her, deep down they both knew that he _had_ to see inside, that it was what she must have wanted him to do.

Holding his breath, he stepped towards the tent and pushed aside one of the flaps. The tent was empty too. He flipped the tent door upwards, so that it stayed in place, and gave a little more light inside. He looked around, a faint smile on his face a reminder that he was right – everything here was as he thought it would be.

The tent was spacious enough for an adult, maybe for two children, to fit in. One the side to his left, a couple of bales of hay supported a wooden plank that had a few makeshift controls made from assorted trinkets, buttons, and broken leftovers from farming equipment. The arrangement was neat but irregular. _The navigation console,_ a voice in his head spoke. He turned to the other side, and there, he found a variety of parts from broken rakes and spades and other bits of machinery, neatly laid out in a line. _The armory._ And in the centre, there stood a barrel, cut into half, and housing stuffed toys, wooden shapes, bits of colored cloth and shiny confetti, and other paraphernalia that he could not recall immediately. _The loot. A space pirate’s raison d’être._ He chuckled as he bent down to run his hands through the treasure. 

He stopped when his hand brushed against something soft. A piece of parchment, partially hidden under a heap of toys. He lifted it up gently. It was probably something he had drawn, crudely with a younger hand. He could however, not recall having drawn it. He observed the parchment – it had been under the toys, near the bottom of the loot, but had been folded neatly. _As if someone wanted this hidden, away from other, prying eyes. This was the real treasure, buried underneath a pile of useless trinkets…_

He smiled softly, as he unfolded the parchment. The media was old, probably handed to the boy by someone who had no use for it. The drawing was surprisingly well done, quite elegant even. It was a portrait, of a lady – a Time Lady, in fact. She was dressed in an official robe, a scarlet hue blending into a rich full-bodied wine. Her hair was done up in a bun, and on her face rested the largest set of round, brown eyes he had ever seen. Her lips had the faintest hint of a smile on their ends, and her hands were crossed over her chest, in a pose that was part mischief-inviting, part admonishing. Under the drawing, a young hand had written down in a cursive hand – Lady Oswin.

He was lost in his examination to notice that the door of the barn had opened. By the time he realized he was not alone, there was nowhere to hide. He turned towards the door and found himself face to face with a young child, breathless from apparently having sprinted to the barn.

“I … I … heard the noise … the whoosh-whoosh…” he spoke haltingly, gathering his breath. He looked once from the older man to the box, and back to the stranger observing his drawing. He repeated the exercise twice, trying to find the right words. When he spoke at last, it was with the directness one can only expect from a child.

“ _You_ are not she!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you :) A slightly longer chapter to conclude the story! Hope you like it.

“ _You_ are not she!” 

The Doctor and the boy stared at each other for a few moments. The boy seemed disappointed for some reason, and the Doctor, well – the Doctor was the Doctor – confused, flummoxed, flabbergasted, incredulous, frozen in place, and in general, being himself. They say that in your last moments, your entire life flashes by as a stream of images. Suffice it to say that the Doctor was experiencing an IMAX version of his life streaming at a million frames per second.

 _The Universe – Oh, I am sorry, I am so, so sorry!_ He thought to no one in particular.

They waited, the boy, eagerly; the Doctor, anxiously. The boy waited for the stranger to say something. The Doctor waited for the Universe to implode in the face of such a paradox.

They waited. The boy soon lost his inquisitive eagerness, and looked away from the man. He glanced back at the door of the barn, as if in two minds about running away. The Doctor gulped, twice, before coming to terms with the non-destruction of the Universe.

“Hah! Always thought somebody made it up to scare kids. Paradoxes, indeed!”

“What?” The boy turned back to the stranger, now that he knew that the stranger could speak.

“No! No, of course I am not _she_.” He pointed to the figure in the painting. He flashed his psychic-paper with a flourish. “The Doctor. Time Academy Barn Inspection Department.” He put it away before the boy could read it completely.

The boy squinted at the stranger. “It’s blank.” He simply said. He then walked over to one of the bales and sat down. The Doctor had recovered enough to observe the boy for the first time. The boy sat on the bale, pulling an old worn-out jacket close to his body. It was not chilly in the barn, hardly so. But the Doctor understood. He smiled to himself and walked over to a makeshift bench made of discarded wood planks. He sat down himself, never taking his eyes of the boy.

“Another night out, alone?” He asked, softly. The boy looked up nervously. His right hand went over the jacket, instinctively. “I know what you have there. Under the jacket, I know who it is.”

The Doctor had no longer spoken the words, than the boy started breathing more rapidly. He opened his mouth slightly as he breathed in and out, with a heavy sound. His fingers clutched the precious treasure under his jacket as he desperately looked for a way away from this stranger. He shook his head slightly, as if wanting to say “No!” but unable to voice it.

“Don’t worry, it will be our secret.” He added after a pause, “Trust me, I am the Doctor! Can I have a look at it?” He removed his sonic screwdriver.

The boy hastily turned away from the older man. “It’s alright. It’s all right. This is just a sonic screwdriver. Nothing dangerous. I just want to scan for any … damage. I promise.”

The boy hesitated, clearly debating whether or not to trust this strange looking man who had invaded his barn. “I will make you a deal,” the older man addressed him. “I will answer any questions you might have, any questions, if you let me take a look at him… it.” The Doctor corrected himself. _Better be careful in what I say. Do not want to give away more than necessary._

The boy nodded, once, twice. He opened up his jacket to reveal a small creature. A tiny furry head popped up from under the jacket, the creature surveying their surroundings with a pair of beady, intelligent eyes. It tried to hold on to the boy’s hand with its forelegs, but the Doctor could see plainly that it had difficult moving.

The Doctor smiled, fondly. It was a Flubble – one of the native creatures of Gallifrey. To a human, they would appear very similar to a koala, only with six legs. The Doctor removed his hoodie and placed it on the floor as mat. He motioned the boy to place the creature on the hoodie. The boy did as indicated, handling the creature gingerly. He kept it on its back, and supported it on both sides with his small palms. It could move the two legs in the front and the two in the middle, but the Doctor saw that it had difficulty moving the hind legs. It seemed to be in pain, but it also seemed to be friends with the boy. It moved its face towards one of the palms supporting it. The Doctor chuckled as he saw the creature cooing and trying to lick the boy’s fingers.

The boy giggled - a clear, bright sound that the Doctor had not heard in a long time. He sat down next to the creature, and scanned it with his sonic.

“Just a minor sprain on the hind legs. You were fortunate to find it … _where_ did you find it, really? Aren’t Flubbles supposed to be shy creatures?” the Doctor put on a mock-adult performance. “Let me just change the setting to muscle-relaxant. This guy should be up and running in no time.” He pointed the sonic at the creature again. It hummed and pulsed, a deep blue that matched the color of his Police Box. The creature stiffened for a moment, resulting in a look of pure horror on the boy’s face. But after a couple of seconds, its entire body relaxed, and soon it was wiggling all of its six limbs. It turned over and began to run up and down the boy’s sides, a movement that tickled the boy into a fit of laughter.

Soon, the creature scurried away towards a corner in the barn, under the piles of freshly cut grass.

“I found it by the well. The other children…” the boy’s voice grew softer, and his face darkened, losing all the joviality it possessed but a few moments ago. “They were throwing stones at it. I tried to talk to them, to persuade them, but they all listen to _him_. Nobody listens to me…”

The Doctor knew whom the boy referred to. He looked up involuntarily, towards the direction of the tent. The boy was referring to his best friend, the second occupant of the pirate ship, its Captain – the pirate who wanted to be a king, a master.

“Children … can be cruel…” The Doctor spoke in a low voice. “But they are cruel because they do not know it is cruelty. _You_ do. Never forget that.” He motioned to the painting. “Who is she? How do you know her?”

“She is our teacher, from school. Miss Oswin.” The boy hesitated, looked once in the direction where his pet had run away. The Flubble had perched atop a section of the pile, and was happily munching away at the orange blades. 

“She is my friend. I like her.” He added, softly.

“She is your only friend at school,” the Doctor added. The boy looked at the stranger, studying him intently for a few moments before nodding.

“She is a Time Lady, although she does not admit it so,” the boy added in a conspiratorial tone.

“How do you know that?” the Doctor enquired, gathering up his hoodie now and putting it on. 

“She … visited me once. In my dream…” the boy was clearly hesitant about sharing this information. After a quick glance at the Flubble, he decided that he could trust this stranger. “I did not see her, but she spoke to me, about being cruel.” He looked up at the man, as if piecing together a puzzle. “Do you know her? Did she send you?”

“In a way, yes. The Time Academy is a big place you know. There are lots and lots of people. How did you know it was Miss … Oswin?” the Doctor looked back at the picture with the last question.

“I did not see her, but I heard her voice. And the moment Miss Oswin stepped into the classroom and said ‘Good Morning’ to us, I knew it was the lady from my dream. Is she your friend? Do you go in the box together?”

“And why would you say that?”

“Because in my dream, as she left, I heard the same whoosh-whoosh sound. So I thought,” he looked down, crestfallen, “that she had come here again. That it was not a dream, that she was indeed a Time Lady.”

The Doctor smiled. “So, tell me, young man – what is this mysterious Time Lady teaching you at school?”

“She teaches us stories, tales.”

“And what tale are you learning right now?”

“It’s the tale of Romero the Movellan and Juliana the Time Lady… It’s sad, I don’t like it.”

The Doctor smiled again, said nothing.

“I don’t like it at all,” the boy added. “Miss Oswin says Romero and Juliana were soulmates, but they had to die for their love. I don’t like it. Why would someone hurt their friend? I asked Miss Oswin, but she did not say why. She only said, I would understand when I grew older, when I have my own soulmate. I don’t want a soulmate, I don’t want to hurt them. I want to be alone, with my Flubble.”

The barn was silent for a few moments, and then the boy looked up at the stranger, as if remembering the bargain they had made a few moments ago. “What is a soulmate?”

The Doctor was taken by surprise at the question. He looked around the barn, stalling for time. He saw the tent, _the Capitol_ , with its dual-occupancy bridge. He saw the broken, old toys in the treasure bin, probably handed down from some older orphan to this boy. He saw the old jacket, patched together with bits from other clothes. He looked directly at the boy and he saw all the night he spent alone, all the nights he would spend alone. He saw promises broken, and hurt, a lot of cruelty and hurt. Ultimately though, he saw the truth. He knew now why the TARDIS had brought him here. He knew why paradoxes never existed in the first place. He knew what he had to do, to be himself, to make himself, whole… In the end, he decided, it came down to his choices, and he had to make a very important one now.

“A soulmate … is a friend,” the Doctor hesitated, unsure about how much to say. “They are more than a friend. They are someone you love, more than anything else that you could love.”

The boy looked up at the stranger, unblinking, and rapt with attention. 

“They make you better … No, they don’t make you better, of course they don’t! You do it yourself.”

They exchanged a smile. 

“But your soulmate, they make you _want_ to be better – to not be cruel, or cowardly. To not give in to the hate, the anger, the hurt.” He looked into the boy’s eyes. “And you know, no matter what you do, you will always love them, always want them to be happy.” He smiled. “A soulmate, as your Miss Oswin no doubt has said, is someone who is different, and is also a part of you. They are your friend, your companion, your voice when you cannot speak, your eyes when you cannot see, and your love when you cannot …” His voice broke at the end.

“They make you … not-alone.” He concluded softly.

Abruptly, the Doctor stood up, said “Good bye” to the boy and walked back to his TARDIS. She opened the doors before he could reach them, and he turned back to the boy before stepping into the TARDIS and flying away.

“Don’t be alone, hmm? Promise me, don’t ever be alone. Find your friend, your … companion.”

The boy nodded, silently.

The TARDIS faded out with the familiar whoosh of the time rotors. The boy sat in his place, staring at the now vacant space, repeating the entire exchange over in his mind.

So, this ‘Doctor’ was a Time Lord then. He seemed like a nice person, just like Miss Oswin. Not at all like the stories that his friend had been telling him. Time Lords were not scary at all.

_He will never be a Time Lord._

He recalled the words of his guardian. _No!_ He thought – he could be one, he would be one. He would show them all. He would show them he could be just like this Time Lord.

He would show them he could be a ‘Doctor.’


End file.
